Emergency oxygen supply devices are available in aircraft, in order to be able to supply passengers and service personnel with oxygen in the case of a sudden pressure drop in the cabin. With a decentralized emergency oxygen supply, the emergency oxygen supply devices are located in the so-called personal service units, which are arranged on the cabin ceiling above the passenger seats.
These emergency oxygen supply devices have an oxygen source which is conductively connected to one or more oxygen masks. It is known to use chemical oxygen generators or oxygen pressure tanks as oxygen sources. Chemical oxygen generators have the disadvantage that the release of the oxygen from a chemical compound and the oxygen flow to the oxygen masks which this entails, as well as the supply pressure to the oxygen masks, follow a fixed given profile. Thus with these systems, it is not possible to control the oxygen supply in dependence on the cabin pressure or the flight altitude.
With the use of gaseous oxygen stored in compressed gas containers, the oxygen supply may be controlled in a suitable manner by way of a pressure regulation device arranged upstream of the oxygen masks. The applied pressure regulation devices may comprise pressure controllers which are actuated in a mechanical and/or pneumatic manner, whose dimensions and weight however are disadvantageously relatively large. Electrically operated regulation units do not have this disadvantage, but with these regulation units, the dependency on an electrical energy supply per se has been found to be problematic, since a failure of the electricity supply may lead to the emergency oxygen supply device not being capable of application at all.